


Rations

by crushcandles



Category: Deadpool (Movieverse)
Genre: Candy, Developing Relationship, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 23:46:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14988161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crushcandles/pseuds/crushcandles
Summary: Life sucks, Wade thinks, and it’s short. Why deny yourself some little pleasures?





	Rations

**Author's Note:**

> This story came at me like it wanted to steal my wallet, but in a fun way? This is movieverse with a helping of making things up. Includes canon-level language and violence. For anyone wondering, the song Wade keeps mentioning is from a Canadian PSA called [Don't Put It In Your Mouth](https://youtu.be/5AuLkMBAFZg) which is very real, earnest, and strange.

Apparently, out of all the greatness this time period has to offer, it's a mint that blows Cable's mind. Granted, it's one of the good ones, from a mid-priced hotel. The kind with chocolate inside. But it’s still just a fucking mint.

"Here," Wade says, at the end of the meeting Colossus has just dismissed them from. They didn't accomplish anything, or even really cover any important issues. Colossus lectured them about doing the right thing, Wade, stop moving things around at night, you can't break into our files, blah blah blah. Seeing Yukio was by far the highlight of the afternoon. 

He flips the mint at Cable, who catches it without looking. "For your trouble. Also, you need it."

Cable opens his palm, looks the white package over. "What is it?"

"It's a mint. I'd give you a toothbrush, but I don't have any spares on me."

Cable looks at him blankly. 

Wade sighs. "Unwrap it, put it in your mouth and suck on it while you go to the store to buy a toothbrush. Ya nasty, Cable." He gets his phone out to text Dopinder for a ride, mask tucked under his armpit.

Cable, for once, does as he's told, except for the part where he spits the mint out as soon as it touches his tongue.

"What the hell!" He rolls his tongue around in his mouth, clearly uncomfortable with the taste.

Wade considers the mint, covered in dirt now. "My God, you really are nasty. And rude. I took the time to collect that off a dead guy's pillow and you just _spit it out_? It was the good kind, with the chocolate centre. Was it too spicy for you?"

“What?” Cable still has baby-betrayed-by-lemon face, but he’s coming around to pissed, which is less funny but easier to deal with.

“It was a mint. Candy, but also good for the breath. Yours smells like you licked a depressed dog, by the way, which is what I was trying to get across with subtlety and nuance, now that we’re best friends.”

Cable stares at him.

“Candy, made with sugar? Sugar? Makes food delicious and life worth living? Friends? _Amis_? _Amigos_? People who do fun things together? I don’t know what part of what I said you don’t understand.”

Wade’s phone trills. It’s Dopinder: _1 min ☺_

“We don’t have that where I come from,” Cable says. He runs his tongue over his teeth reflexively.

Wade puts his phone away and pulls his mask on. “Friends? Yeah, I can tell. It’s like talking to a wolf baby.”

“No, idiot,” Cable retorts. “We don’t have sugar in my time. I think it’s extinct. There’s not enough arable land to grow regular food for people, let alone a luxury like that.”

Wade sees the bright yellow taxi and waves, like Dopinder might miss the giant mansion if he doesn’t. “Well, sucks to suck, I guess. I’m not giving you any more though, since you wasted the gift I gave you. Next time, I’m giving you a mouthful of cock. Good luck spitting that out.”

Cable frowns at the mint, takes an aborted step toward it. Wade slaps a hand on his metal arm to stop him.

“No! Bad wolf baby! Nasty. What did I _just_ say? There’s more where that came from, so don’t put it in your mouth. Jesus, I have so much to teach you.” He steers Cable toward the cab. “I’ll start by teaching you a very useful song about whether or not to put something in your mouth, but on one condition.”

Cable shakes Wade’s hand off. “What’s that?”

“Buy a fucking toothbrush, you animal.”

*

Cable watches Wade rip the Danish he bought in half. Wade passes half to Dopinder. Cable tracks the movement, brand new toothbrush in his fist.

“You want?” Wade holds up his half. He doesn’t love sharing food, but there’s times when it’s necessary, like when your present sidekick picks you up from a meeting, or when you inherit a future sidekick who’s never been in the sweet embrace of a sugar coma.

Cable’s eyes drop real quick, like he just got caught looking at a good porno. “No.”

“Survey says that’s a lie, but if you say so.” Wade crams his half of the Danish in his mouth. Cable watches him chew and swallow with jealousy in that Lite Brite eye of his.

*

The whole story, straight from the mouth of the taciturn horse stuck in traffic is: Earth is seven kinds of fucked-up where Cable’s from, climate-wise, people-wise, food-wise. 

"Our food is rationed," he says. "And there's nothing like _this_ ," he picks up the Danish wrapper with two fingers, like it's a good porno he's finished jerking off onto.

Dopinder nods. "What do you eat?"

Cable shrugs. "What we can, what we're given."

"Bugs?" Wade suggests. "There's a movie where people eat bugs. It's kinda gross, but I think we're starting to get into that shit now, so..."

Cable cuts him a shitty look, says to Dopinder, "Food isn't for pleasure. It's for nutrition. People are starving."

Wade licks his thumb, runs the nail under his teeth to get any crumbs he can. "You should get into it while the getting is good then. You want it, we got it. Good luck not enjoying the food here. We've figured out how to deep-fry liquids." Wade makes an A-OK gesture.

Cable grimaces, looks out the window, muttering about how selfish people are.

*

The man should be cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. A sucker for saccharides, crazy for candy. Wade gave him ten dollars when they’d parted ways, told him to live a little, he deserves it. If he really wanted to do some good in the world, he’d buy a Slurpee, maybe save a present-day kid from type-2 diabetes. Cable had just made disgruntled noises, heading in a different direction than the bodega Dopinder had dropped them in front of. 

The point is, there’s sugar here, more than any single person needs, and Cable’s here too, so Wade does not see any reason why he should deny himself the pleasure. Which is why, when Wade comes out of his own bathroom to see Cable sitting on Wade’s couch, painstakingly peeling a single Ferrero Rocher – not out of it’s wrapper, but out of its lumpy chocolate coating—putting tiny crumbs in his mouth, Wade throws up his hands.

“For Christ’s sake,” he says, “I can’t believe a guy like you needs to be told this twice, but just put the whole thing in your mouth and _suck it_.”

Cable looks at him, half-crushed Ferrero Rocher between his metal fingers, chocolate smeared on his skin index finger. “Where I come from,” he starts.

Wade’s hands have just about made it down to his waist. He throws them up again, interrupting: “Yeah! I know! You told me a week ago. Everything is grim and has a weird filter on it, and everyone’s bellies are empty but for dust and sadness while they listen to the fucking _records_ they have for some reason. Why are people in the future listening to records? Huh? Music’s already practically all digital now. Why would people use shitty records in the future? Is it just for the effect? Ugh. The future is so hipster and trite.”

Cable ignores him, maybe because his rant went off-message. He puts his index finger in his mouth first, and then, grudgingly, his tiny chocolate treat. Wade watches him tuck it into his cheek like the world’s most jacked-up squirrel so he can savour the flavour.

“There,” Wade says, dropping his hands again. “Not so hard, was it?”

Cable glares at him, which looks real goofy with one popped-out cheek, and puts his boots on Wade’s coffee table. 

Wade points at his dirty feet. “Okay, one: rude. You continue to be so fucking ill-mannered it makes me sick. That coffee table is new to me. Two: what are you doing here? And three: how do you know where I live? I’ve been here like, two weeks.”

“Asked,” Cable says in a gruff, _no duh_ kind of voice.

“Who? Colossus? How dare you. Don’t you talk to him. I’m supposed to be the one that initiates that threesome. He who starts it…gets…spit-roasted. That doesn’t rhyme, but who cares. Keep it pushing.”

Cable rolls his eyes. With a moist sound, he rolls the Ferrero Rocher to his other cheek.

Wade puts his hands on his hips. “And…what are you doing here?”

“I need money.”

Wade says, “Don’t do handouts, friend, so—“

“I want you to take me to your guy. Tell him to give me contracts.”

“He may or may not do that, since you threatened to torture him.” Weasel’s pretty attached to his limbs, his soft parts, and his grudges. Wade can understand that. He can give or take the limbs, but he does love soft parts and a good grudge.

“Make him,” Cable growls.

Wade holds his hands up, this time in peace. “Okay, fine. Take your bossypants off. Just tryin’ to get some questions answered.”

Smug, Cable rubs his boot on Wade’s coffee table. He rolls his Ferrero Rocher again, and finally bites it, smiling at the taste. “You got any other questions?”

Wade sits on the arm of the couch, leans along the back so he’s close to Cable’s ear. “So many. Who shaves the back of your head? If you jerk off with your fancy hand does it feel like a stranger’s doing it? Do you want to stay for dinner?” 

“I do,” Cable says. “No, I know it’s me. And definitely no.”

Wade reaches out, puts his index finger on Cable’s neck. He strokes a long line down to Cable’s shirt, rubs a little circle. Then he digs his finger in. “In that case, time for you to go home to your unsalted lentils or whatever it is you future-types eat.”

Cable bats at him, but takes his grimy shoes off Wade’s coffee table and his beautiful, muscular body out of Wade’s apartment. Wade leers after him, gives him a wolf whistle for good measure because he knows Cable will glare back at him. That rude asshole is so hot.

*

Cable shows back up the next day and Wade takes him to the bar. They get a wide berth, wider than Wade's face usually commands, so Cable's psycho monologue has clearly been retold to the masses.

Weasel doesn't want anything to do with Cable, but when Wade tells him the truth, which is that if he's the one who hooks Cable up then Cable's less likely to hook him up to a car battery, he changes his stance. 

"Just don't give him the real good jobs," Wade whispers. "Remember who you love the most." He leans in closer. “Me.”

Weasel nods, very conspiratorially. He doesn't take his eyes of Cable, who's posing like goddamn Batman in the shadows. 

Wade joins him there. "You're in. He'll dig something up if you can wait a few minutes."

"Is it with you?" Cable asks. It's impossible to tell if that's the outcome he wants or not.

"Sorry, baby bird," Wade says. "You're gonna have to fly solo on this one. I have my own fucker to shoot in the face. But I tell you what, if you don't come back, I'll come looking for you."

Cable frowns. He doesn't want to do the job with Wade then. "Thanks. I'm fine on my own."

Wade holds up a finger. "You didn't let me finish. I'll come looking for you so I can pry that huge, sexy gun out of your cold, dead hands. Maybe I’ll take the arm too. It would be a valuable part of my Winter Soldier cosplay. I'll leave your corpse for the birds."

That definitely, totally gets a smile. Wade can see it in the corner of Cable's mouth. He can feel it under his finger too.

Weasel's starting to look nervous, which is Wade's cue to leave. He's not interested in managing their rat-fuck of a relationship any more than he has to. He chucks Cable on his metal shoulder, which is hard on the knuckles.

"Looks like it’s your time to shine. I'll leave you with a saying by a modern American philosopher: good luck and don't fuck it up."

*

Wade’s job goes great. He doesn’t get to shoot the fucker in the face, but he does shoot him in the leg and the chest and he does get a few kicks in. All Wade loses is a finger and the week-long transit pass he bought at the start of the job. That’s all fine. He grows another finger and he has the promise of enough money once the guy is dead to just take a cab to the airport.

He’s back at the bar in four days, feet up on a table and drinking a Tequila Sunrise.

“Any word from T-800?” Weasel asks, shining a glass with a dirty rag.

Wade sucks his drink back, gets the cherry. “Nah. We’re not texting buddies. I don’t even know if that guy has a phone.”

*

Cable maybe doesn’t have a phone, but he does know where Wade lives, and he’s apparently not afraid to just stand outside for as long as it takes for Wade to get home.

“Ah!” He yells when he gets out of the elevator to see Cable looming in front of his apartment door. “It’s the Ghost of Christmas Future.”

“Where were you?” Cable demands. There are definitely scuffs from a metal fist on Wade’s door.

“Out,” Wade says, which is a real blast from crappy relationships past. “I told you I had my own thing to do.”

Cable follows him into the apartment, and then…doesn’t do anything. He just stands there.

“Sooo.” Wade peers at him. “Did your thing go okay?”

“I did it.”

Wade wrestles himself out of his sweater, peels his socks off. “Good job. I’m very proud.” He sits on the couch, rubbing his new index finger against his thumb. He’s not drunk, but drinking tequila makes him feel homey, reminds him of being a kid. Cable keeps standing near the door, not quite at attention, his metal hand behind his back.

“Can I help you?” Wade asks him. “Do you need to talk about it? Or is there something else you want?”

Cable looks at him stone-faced, but his human fingers move restlessly near his thigh.

Wade sighs, shakes his head, but he’s a little hopeful when he asks, “Is this the part where we have tense, post-kill sex?” Wade’s down to expand the boundaries of their relationship. Best friends who bone is a category Wade could get into. I teach you the joys of a sugar rush, you show me what that arm can do, that kind of stuff.

The human fingers turn into a fist and the metal arm does not make an appearance. Cable frowns at the wall, away from Wade.

“No? Fine. Your loss.” Wade digs in the couch cushions for the television remote. “I’m ordering Chinese. If you stay, you’re buying.”

Cable stays, but just long enough for Wade to go into the bedroom to order the food. Wade comes back out to a handful of bills on the couch where Cable was just sitting.

*

Since Wade’s a great contract killer, mediocre part-time superhero, and pretty good Junior Detective, it only takes a month or so for him to figure out the pattern. He’s looking at his Princess Precious Kittens calendar, scheduling his Amazon toilet paper deliveries, when it comes to him that Cable shows up the day before his TP does. Every ten days. Get TP. Get a job. Do the job. Take a personal day or five. Maybe check-in some of his X-frenemies. Online shop. See Cable. Repeat.

Beyond that, there’s less of a pattern. Sometimes he stays for ninety seconds, sometimes for hours. He drinks water or beer, never eats anything that he doesn’t bring (items brought include: an apple, a bag of honey-roasted airline peanuts, and a fucking hotel mint, _sad_ ), and talks briefly about what he’s currently doing and more briefly about what he’s done in the past-future.

He even laughs a couple of times. Once is even at a dog show on television, which Wade finds grossly heartwarming. Mostly though, Cable looks guilty to be there, even when Wade tells him: “ _Mi casa_ is _mi casa_ , but I can’t seem to stop you from coming over, so let’s go with it.”

He always leaves when he’s told to. He does keep coming back though, little doses, so that’s cool.

*

They're on a roof together, sitting on lawn chairs. Wade has the sniper rifle, Cable has the binoculars. It's a one-person job, really, but this week Cable's being co-dependent, so he's acting like the eyes of the operation. Wade doesn't know if he can even see through the binoculars with his left eye, but he's taking a rock-bottom cut of the job so Wade has graciously allowed him to come.

It's nice to have someone to talk to, too. You can't really needle the pigeons, except literally, and that's animal abuse.

"Bet you I can give this guy an eye to match yours," Wade says, looking through the scope of the rifle at the target's empty office. He's an embezzler, currently enjoying a donut in the department's monthly meeting. When he gets back to his office, Wade's going to turn his eye into a donut hole and his brain into the jelly.

"Capable of seeing much more than a human eye?" Cable asks, binoculars on his thigh. He seems relaxed, slouching in his chair like a model, with his model scarf. He’s chewing on the stick leftover from one of those flat-sided suckers, the kind from the doctor’s office.

"Blammo. If I win, you have to give me a tongue bath. If you win, I'll buy you a donut. Mmm, donuts. They're good. Have you had one?"

Cable makes a non-committal noise. He goes so far as to yawn, rubbing the skin under the aforementioned eye.

“Is somebody tired?” Wade sing-songs. “Maybe they should have stayed home and had a nap, instead of riding Deadpool’s coattails.”

“I’m fine. It’s just hard to sleep here. This city is too goddamn loud.” Cable squints at a cloud. “I wanted to come.”

Wade holds the rifle up. “Wanted to learn from my superior sniping skills?”

Cable looks down off the roof. “Something like that.”

“Let me tell you, it’s a real honour to be the person you model yourself after personally, professionally, and sexually. It must be so exciting to be near me.”

“It’s a thrill.” 

“Your humour is developing nicely. Very dry.” Wade means it. That was damn close to being a joke. Soon he’ll introduce knock-knock jokes. In five years, they can start observational humour.

Dickwad takes his time coming back to his office, which is really just the way, isn’t it. Everybody takes their sweet-ass time when you need to kill them. Wade lifts the rifle again, watching him saunter around. He has powdered sugar all over his face, the fucking chump. 

“C’mon,” Wade moans. “The one time you decide to socialize instead of stealing money.”

He leans over to Cable. “If I’d known you were going to tag along on this job I would have sent you in there to seduce him.”

Cable turns to him sharply. “The fuck?” He sounds offended.

Wade strokes the forearm on offer. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t shoot _you_. That’s behind us now. What would happen is you would get him to bend you over his desk—making sure you lay nice and flat—and then while he rails you, I’d,” he makes a jerking off motion with one hand, fumbling a finger-gun with his other one before he finally fires it.

Cable looks from his hands to his face, stunned.

“The fumbling was really to be funny. I can definitely safely bust a nut and a cap at the same time,” Wade assures him.

Cable’s eyebrows are close together. “You think I’d do that?”

Wade lifts the rifle again, eye to the scope. “Yes, definitely. You’re cute and there’s no way someone with an ass like that has never done a honeypot and I would kill for the privilege to run—oh, look.” He takes a moment to steady the rifle, skimming the intersection between computer monitor and cheekbone.

“Little higher,” he mutters, adjusting his breathing. He waits one beat for luck and pulls the trigger. Glass shatters, Dickwad’s eye goes dark, and there’s red jelly all over the place.

*

They go to the bar to get paid, and to celebrate. Weasel hands over the cash envelope and Wade carefully counts it out, and very carefully rations out two twenties.

He holds them out to Cable, waving them. “Looky, I’m giving you _two_ twenties instead of one because you were so helpful today.”

“Wow,” Cable says, deadpan. “Thanks.”

“There’s ten grand in that envelope,” Weasel interjects from behind the bar.

Wade glares at him. “I know that. Since you were eavesdropping, then you heard that boyfriend here just got a fifty percent raise. Whose side are you on?”

Weasel shrinks a little, but that’s probably because Cable turns to him, brandishing one of the bills.

“Two beers,” he says.

“Yeah, uh, yes,” Weasel stammers, turning stiffly, “sir.”

Wade cackles at that because it’s great to see Weasel get his ass handed him. He gets a smirk from Cable and one of those beers for it.

*

After a few hours, Wade’s feeling great. He’s been paying regular visits to his friend Tequila, everyone in the bar has heard about how he turned a guy's head into a donut, and Cable's only stolen a couple hundred dollars out of the envelope. Wade's having such a good time he's ditched the mask and the top half of the suit is hanging from his waist. It started as a bit about douchey surfers but he's leaning into the look now. Low self-esteem was so last movie.

"Hey," Cable says to him. He must have discovered he likes rum and Cokes, since he's drinking one. It has a cherry in it, so Weasel must have found at least one of his balls somewhere behind the bar

Wade looks away from MLB on the bar TV. He looks Cable in the eye and makes a show of stuffing the cash envelope further into the waistband of the suit. "No more. You've already had like, ten advances on your allowance."

Cable's eyes flit to the envelope, the one corner showing. If he wants it he's gonna have to really go for it. He sips his drink slowly.

"You drunk?" he asks.

Wade shakes his head. "Nah. It's hard to get turnt these days. Takes a lot of work. If I cut this with bleach, then probably. That does the trick sometimes." He shakes his own drink, licks the salty rim. Cable watches him do it, a complicated look on his face, disturbed but interested.

"There's probably some in the bathroom," Wade tells Cable as he tips his drink back, working on it until it’s just a cherry riding ice. He sets the glass on the bar, and takes Wade's from him. He smells it, curious, but sets it down with a lip curl.

Wade says, "Just a little bit, okay? I have things to do tomorrow—whoa –”

Cable's got him by the arm and is pulling him through the thin crowd toward the bathrooms. Everyone watches them go, but pretends they don't.

Wade goes with it until Cable drags him past the bathroom, toward the back door. Then he struggles a little, but Cable is strong as shit and has no problem muscling him out into the alley. He pushes Wade up against the bricks on the far side of the dumpster. The wall is cold and scratchy on Wade’s back and Cable is very close to him.

There’s sweat on Cable’s hairline and his scars look smooth in the yellow light above the door. His eye is glowing like a coal, reading something from Wade. He looks scary and very attractive, which is one of Wade’s favourite things. His body is hot. He even smells incredible.

There’s generally two reasons you get dragged into an alley: violence or sex. How this looks, Cable caging him against a building next to a gross dumpster, it could be a violent situation, but Wade’s horny spider sense is tingling to tell him it’s probably not. Taking the chance, Wade smiles at Cable—his best, most charming one—and puts a hand on his flank. He can feel metal under Cable’s t-shirt, which is awesome. He tries to project enthusiastic interest for Cable’s eye.

“Is _this_ ,” he says softly, very excitedly, “the part where we have post-mission sex? Is it the thought of honeypotting for me that’s got you all worked up? Is it my sniper skills?”

Cable’s so close to him Wade’s breath curls back on his own face.

“Yes,” Cable says, to at least one of those questions.

Wade leans into him because he’s got some gentlemanly capabilities and gentlemen kiss, but Cable’s no gentleman at all because he drops to his knees before Wade can get there, starts pulling the fly on the suit apart.

“Oh, damn,” Wade says, voice thin because a lot of blood just went to his dick. He clears his throat, touches Cable’s shoulder.

“I was joking about the tongue bath thing, you know?” he says faintly, just in case.

“I want to,” Cable responds gruffly, roughly wrestling Wade’s suit down his thighs. The envelope drops onto the ground between Cable’s knees.

Cable rubs a thumb over Wade’s dick. He doesn’t pause over the texture and he’s not tentative when he gets his mouth on it, his eyes closed and his mouth wet for it already.

Cable doesn’t suck cock like he’s getting paid to do it. He sucks cock like he loves it, like it’s the privilege he’d kill for. His mouth moves quickly and smoothly, no teeth, just in it to win it suction.

If he weren’t looking right at it, weren’t experiencing spine-tingling pleasure, Wade would hardly believe it. But he can see his ugly dick on top of Cable’s tongue and feel Cable’s metal hand high on the inside of his thigh, so it’s happening. 

It feels so good he can’t even talk. He’s making noises, lots of them, but his vocabulary is mushy at best. He’s not sure if he’s supposed to be doing anything, but the best he can do is hold onto Cable’s shoulders and try not to have an aneurysm.

It’s the metal hand on his balls that does him in. Not only can the man suck dick like a champion, but he knows how to put that cyber arm to use. There’s nothing like having a hot mouth on your cock and cool weird future mesh on your balls to make you come.

Cable doesn’t seem to care that Wade’s almost strangling him with his t-shirt. He leans into it, mouth deep on Wade’s dick. He takes the load in two deep, chugging swallows, then holds his mouth there.

Wade trembles through it, whimpering. 

Cable breathes out slowly through his nose, hot across Wade’s belly, and then he pulls back. He swallows again, looking up at Wade while he wipes the back of his hand over his mouth.

“Oh, damn,” Wade sighs, sounding like he’s been drinking bleach.

The drunk feeling lingers. Cable helps him out by hiking his suit just over his wet dick, doing the fly halfway. He even tucks the envelope back in there, where it’ll turn to pulp from all the spit. Then he just stays there on his knees, like he’s cool to hang out until Wade can handle himself.

It takes a few seconds to get back online, then Wade says, “ _Goddamn_ , someone really needed to get their tonsils glazed.”

Cable raises an eyebrow at him, chuckling. Even that’s hot. Wade’s balls ache in his suit.

Offering Cable a hand up, Wade says, “I mean, wow. Put that on your business cards. _Whatever Cable, Dicksucker Extraordinaire_.” He stops to think about it. “Is Cable even your name? It’s not, right? As a porn name, fine, but otherwise, no. What _is_ your name?”

Cable plucks at the distressed shoulder of his shirt, revealing a mostly-metal collarbone. “You can call me Cable.”

“Jesus, you suck a guy’s dick and you still won’t tell him your name. You wanna stick with pet names? I’m down. Thanks for the A+ suckjob, pumpkin.”

“No,” Cable says.

“Sweetheart?”

“No.”

“Honey?”

Cable winces like that one might be a little too real. “No.”

“Hoovermouth? C’mon, gimme something. You’re making me feel bad.” 

“Nate,” Cable finally grunts, voice rusty from cock. “It’s Nate.”

Wade nods. “Nate, wonderful. Still kind of pornographic in a frat-boy kinda way but that makes sense considering what just happened here. I’ll start using that now.” 

Nate hums, looking toward the door. He barely reacts when Wade hooks a finger in his stupid utility belt. All he does is slowly turn his head back to Wade, his mouth soft and unsmiling.

Wade reaches out for his cock, gets a nice, hard handful. He squeezes it, watching Nate’s eyelids go heavy.

“You want—“ he starts, but is interrupted by the creaking of the bar door. Nate steps back, taking his hot-ass mouth and erection with him.

It’s Small Jim, who obviously got voluntold to come see if Nate has murdered Wade, if the way he’s hunching his burly shoulders and not looking directly at them is any indication.

“You guys alright out here?” He calls timidly.

“Yeah,” Nate calls back, not looking away from Wade. His voice is still thick from Wade’s dick, not that Jim would know that, which gives Wade the best secret feeling. “I’m stealing his money.”

“Yeah,” Wade echoes. “And my heart!”

*

Wade waits until his calendar tells him he’s due for a drop-in, and then he hits up his local Krispy Kreme. When Nate sits down on his couch, Wade throws the bag to him.

Nate pulls out the Glazed Kreme Filled, examining it. He pulls the donut’s seam apart, sending watery cream sliding down his thumb. The whole picture should be part of a beefcake magazine you’d see behind the counter in a store, with the brown paper covering everything but the title. Wade is careful not to blink.

“What’s this for?” Nate asks. “I lost your bet.”

Wade collects himself. “Maybe in the future things are still no homo, and things in the present are actually pretty no homo despite some strides in the rainbow direction. But I’m definitely a yes homo kind of guy, and a BJ of that caliber should never go unanswered. I owe you,” he says, trying to imbue those last three words with all the promise of sexual fairness he can.

“I’ll remember that,” Nate says mildly, putting his thumb in his mouth.

*

Wade knows he’s solid in the mercenary, superhero and Junior Detective departments, but he also knows he’s not immune from the ravages of emotional trauma. He loves Vanessa, misses her the way he misses _Gremlins_ tie-in cereal, which is to a depth no one in his life understands. Grieving is a process, he knows. It has highs and lows. This week, he feels raw and lumpy on the inside, not just the outside. The three quick, bloody jobs in the city he’s done haven’t helped much. Seeing Nate come out of Wade’s bathroom as Wade drops his katanas in the shoe closet after the third one would normally be a source of warm fuzzies and a moderate sexual turn-on, but today it’s a piss-off.

“Did you fucking move in here when I wasn’t looking?” Wade bitches. He wants to be alone, to mourn, and maybe to do some fucked-up shit in mourning. Not entertain the world’s weirdest sex robot since ASIMO.

Nate wipes his hands on his pants. “You didn’t lock your door. No. I have any own place.” He says it like Wade’s the idiot.

“I think you should go have fun there instead of here.” Wade opens the door. Nate ignores him, sits his ass down on the couch, puts his arm across the back of it. Relaxing.

“Trick,” Wade says, on edge. “I am not joking.”

Nate eyes him. “Here is fun,” he says flatly. “You said you wanted to watch…Shark Tornado?”

“Jesus Christ,” Wade groans, slamming the door. Shark Tornado, what has Wade gotten himself into? Now he has to get himself out of it. He stalks to the hall closet, digs around in the garbage there until he finds something he can use, ripping the bag as he goes.

He dumps the bag of Halloween candy on the table in front of Nate, whose eyes go a little wide at all the colours.

“You know who this is for?” Wade asks him. “Children! Irresponsible, horny for mischief children. I was saving this for them, but I am willing to waste it on you, if you’ll get gone.” When he says _get gone_ , Wade makes it rain candy bars on Nate, who still looks like he can’t believe it.

“You’re a nutjob,” he says, picking up a peanut butter cup to examine it.

“No.” Wade holds up a little Oh Henry. “ _This_ is a nutjob. I’m an occasionally good person who knows how to read social cues. Like the ones that say _I need space, you stage-5 clinger_.” He throws a bar to the side of the couch, then another, then another, making a candy trail to the door.

Nate frowns, but rips the wrapper on the peanut butter cup anyway.

Wade holds up a finger. “Ah ah ah. Don’t spoil your dinner with candy!” He starts sweeping the candy into a pile on the table, then stops. He fixes Nate with a long, hard look.

“Jesus,” Nate mutters. But he takes the dinner talk for what it is: a signal that he’s overstayed the welcome Wade never really extended to him and its time for him to go back to where he came from. Wade doesn’t know, and hasn’t cared enough yet to find out. Maybe when he feels better.

Wade wants him out, wants to look after his own bad feelings, but that doesn’t stop him from molesting Nate’s fanny pack, cramming as much Halloween candy in there as he can before Nate fights him off.

“I would say don’t eat it all at once,” Wade says as Nate dusts himself off in the apartment building’s hallway, “but I know you’re weird and sad so you won’t. Now get the fuck out of here.” He closes the door. He vaults over the back of the couch, ready for a nice, long wallow before he gets up to something more actively self-destructive. He lands full-body, which the couch complains about with a shuddering creak underneath him.

Also underneath him, candy bar wrappers rustle, and Wade feels some of them give. That cheap chocolate won’t be any sort of match for the feverish temperature his garbage body runs at. Whatever, he’s been covered in worse.

*

Once his freak-out simmers down a little, Wade takes a job in Tijuana, which is delicious from both a food perspective and a therapeutic murder perspective. He comes back no more tan than when he left but a little lighter spiritually. His gun bag is full of sand though, which is gonna be a real bitch when he gets to it.

Nate doesn’t show up at the ten-day mark. Or the twentieth. According to Weasel, he took some small stakes contract in Topeka of all places and should have been back by now but why don’t you just call him, Wade, get off my dick about it.

When it hits Day 27, Wade seriously considers cleaning all the sand off his guns. He’ll need them to get Nate’s good gun and his arm. Maybe the rest of him, if Wade’s feeling it, which he can admit he probably will be. 

He’s just rolling out the plastic sheeting on the living room floor when a fist starts banging on his door.

“Who is it?” he calls, falsetto. Hopefully not the landlord. He can’t remember if he paid rent this month and that dude is sketchy enough to go straight to breaking limbs. Wade hates explaining how that trick doesn’t work on him.

“Me,” says the only person stupid enough to say that. Wade opens the door anyway.

“Where were you?” Wade’s still speaking in falsetto. “I missed you!”

“That’s not what I remember,” Nate tells him. He looks tired and his clothes are rumpled. Airport fresh, if Wade had to guess. His skin forearm is wrapped in gauze. He steps past Wade into the apartment. His eyes sweep over the plastic, the bag of guns.

“Keeping yourself busy?” Nate throws the question over his shoulder.

"Yeah, actually. Did my laundry, caught up on my stories. I was just getting ready to rescue you."

Nate half-turns. "Really?"

"We had an agreement, if your ailing memory can remember that far back." 

"Took you long enough," Nate grumbles.

Wade leans back on the counter, crosses one ankle over another. "Laundry and soaps were higher up on the list. And look, you're just as handsome as you were before." He gives Nate an elevator look, up and down. Minus the scrapes and the stink of fresh travel, Nate does look just fine.

Nate nods, and sits down on the couch. He scratches the gauze on his arm idly, giving off the vibe that he's not going anywhere fast. He looks Wade up and down too, lingering on his boxers, his ugly thrift t-shirt.

"Well," Wade says slowly. "I don't really have any food, but maybe you wanna clean the sand off some guns?"

Nate's face pinches up. "How much sand?"

When Wade tips his bag over on the plastic, a good portion of the beach cascades out along with all his guns.

Wade grins hopefully. “You can lecture me about it?”

Nate puts his knuckle in his eye. “Fine.”

*

They clean Wade’s guns in relative peace. Nate frowns a bunch, but keeps his comments to himself, if he has them.

Until, when Wade’s passing him the gun oil, he says, “I used to do this with my wife.”

“Clean guns?” Wade can’t help but sound a little incredulous. What a wholesome family activity.

Nate raises an eyebrow at him. “Yes. She was very good at it. Nimble hands.”

Wade looks at his own hands. He’d probably use the word _dexterous_ but nimble’s not bad. He takes a second, then asks, “Are you hitting on me?”

Nate fumbles the gun he’s holding, dripping gun oil on Wade’s carpet, next to the smear of a melted Twix bar.

“I was talking about my wife,” he sputters. “Why the fuck would you ask me that?”

Wade rubs his fingers over the oil on the carpet. It’ll never come out, not that he’s gonna try. He rubs his fingers together, then over his boxers. 

“I wanted to know,” he says honestly. “And in my defense, the last time we talked about your wife, you were absolutely jackhammering me with your eyes while lubing up your lips for God-knows-what purpose. So I think you can forgive my assumption that that’s how you try to pick up. If that was your intent, then your approach needs work.”

Nate gives him a tough look, but doesn’t refute it. He finishes cleaning his gun. His hands are slow, methodical, and his face looks kind of like how it did at the bar, when Wade offered to drink bleach, suffering interest. He doesn’t say anything.

Wade makes it through three minutes of hard silence before he decides to let it go. He’s not stupid enough to think he can make Nate do anything he doesn’t want to do.

“What made your job take so long? Did you get hurt?” He gestures to Nate’s bandaged arm. 

Nate finally looks at him, shaking his head. “Just a scrape. I finished in a couple of days.” He lifts the gun he has like he’s going to shoot Wade’s TV, looking down the barrel.

“So…what? You went on vacation in fucking Topeka for three weeks?” The thought is kind of depressing. It’s those kind of choices that make Wade worry for the future.

Nate glances at him and shrugs. “Didn’t have anywhere else to be.”

*

Nate comes back a few days later. It’s a schedule upset, but maybe he’s catching up after the insane decision to stay in Kansas voluntarily for literally weeks. He doesn’t stay long, but he does bring Wade a magnet that says KANSAS above a pair of ruby slippers, which is a choice.

“It doesn’t make sense, but you know I appreciate a chunky glitter, so thank you.” Wade rubs his thumb over the little red shoes. It’s clearly an airport tchotchke, but Wade likes tacky garbage. He’s honestly touched by the gesture.

“You’re welcome,” Nate says, gently redirecting Wade’s hand with the magnet away from his metal forearm. He does it a second time, then says, “How long do you owe me?”

Wade’s distracted trying to plan his next magnet siege. “For the magnet? Not very long. The glitter is great, but the overall construction is poor.”

“No,” Nate says. “For before.”

Wade thinks about it. It takes some mental rewinding, but then he comes across the part where Nate had gone tongue-deep on the donut Wade had given him like he had a creampie kink.

“I don’t know,” Wade says, more distracted than before. “As long as you want.”

“I don’t want you to owe me,” Nate tells him.

Wade’s still thinking about Nate and the donut, and he gets the magnet on Nate’s arm, so he just says, “Yeah, sure,” absently.

“Good,” Nate says, letting the magnet fall to the floor.

*

Wade sticks the magnet on his fridge, uses it to anchor some ice cream coupons he lifted out of Al’s mail. Nate sees it the next time he visits, back on his schedule.

Wade accosts him at the door. “What are you eating? I thought I heard—”

Nate holds up the package. It crinkles in his hand, telltale. Inside, the Danish gleams beautifully, a single bite taken out of it.

“I remembered it,” he says, ripping it in half without being told to. “I don’t know if I like it. It’s really sweet.”

Wade takes half from him, greedy. Without it, Nate’s fingers are lightly glazed, hanging there.

“ _Really sweet_ is good for you,” Wade mumbles around his mouthful. “It builds character.”

Nate doesn’t reply. His hand is still between them. He’s looking beyond Wade’s shoulder, at the fridge. Wade looks over his shoulder, catches a glimpse of red and ugly.

He grins. “You thought I’d just throw it out! All these months and you still don’t trust me. You’re still so rude.”

“Maybe,” Nate mutters, clearly caught out.

“I’d never,” Wade admonishes him. “I’m gonna treasure the hell out of that piece of crap.”

Nate startles badly when Wade grabs his hand, eyes pulled away from the fridge. He watches Wade wipe the Danish over his fingers, trying to collect the glaze.

“Waste not, want not,” Wade tells him. Nate lets him, sucks his fingers off after, eying Wade. But after that he just washes his hands at the kitchen sink. They spend the evening watching _Real Housewives_.

*

They’re at Sister Margaret’s, waiting for details on what’s supposed to be a cherry job for two, when Nate pulls something out of his pocket and starts unwrapping it. Wade squints at it.

“What the hell are you eating now?”

“I don’t know.” 

Wade looks to the grimy ceiling and its Jesus-shaped water stain for guidance. When they were designing Nate’s character sheet they must have gone real light on the intelligence points in order to pad out the looks column. God help fuckable morons. “How many times do you need me to sing you the song? I know it’s very charming when I do the anthropomorphic beet part but I need you to work with me here. If you get real sick, real ick before this job I’m gonna have your ass, and not in the fun way.”

Nate fiddles with the clear wrapper until he can read it. “Smarties?”

“Hell no!” Wade slaps the roll of candies out of Nate’s hand, slams his boot down on them, grinding until there’s nothing left but grey-pastel dust. “Not today, Satan. These,” he grinds his heel some more, “are not Smarties. They’re an abomination. Smarties come in a blue box and are made of chocolate. The red ones used to be made with bugs.”

“Okay,” Nate says, not as grossed out by the cochineal food dye fact as he should be. He leans against the bar and turns his attention to the television. He watches it the same creepy, empty-eyed way a dog does. He’s smiling to himself.

Wade’s a little surprised he didn’t get slapped back at for coming between a man and his fix. Maybe the novelty has worn off, which is probably for the best because Nate does not have dental insurance. Cavities are no joke, especially if you’re gross and just learned what a toothbrush was a few months ago. 

Maybe he’s finally getting into broccoli, or organic meat. Or maybe, Wade’s dick was so good Nate’s sweet tooth went from a ten to a six. That would be all-around helpful. Wade’s reliving exactly how helpful his dick was and imagining other ways it could be of service when Weasel coughs.

He puts an envelope on the bar between the three of them.

“So here it is.” He taps his fingers on the envelope. “Some mob guy’s son got kidnapped by some other mob guys and he wants him back, alive, and the kidnappers dead.”

Wade groans. “More kids? Haven’t we,” he gestures between himself and Nate, who does not give off an air of being able to handle more kid-based storylines, “suffered enough?”

Weasel waves him off. “Don’t worry. He’s only a kid in the way that we’re all someone’s kids. He’s thirty-one and has a neckbeard.”

Wade makes a face. “Ew. Why are we saving him?”

“Because he’s worth $125,000,” Weasel says, holding up the envelope with directions to the warehouse in it.

Wade brightens, swipes the envelope. “Junior, we’re comin’ for you!”

*

The job is upstate, but the mobster wants it done under the cover of night, which gives them a few hours to prep. Wade spends those few hours digging through his stuff, pulling out the B-guns, some Molotov cocktail supplies, and a couple of knives he's been looking forward to using.

Nate shows up in time to watch a knife spear into the drywall. 

"Nice," he says, dropping a duffle bag on the carpet. He tugs the knife out of the wall, testing the weight before handing it back.

"You like it?" Wade asks. "I'm hoping to put it in someone's ear."

"I've done that," Nate says, all casual, like it's not super cool. He takes a knee, unzipping his duffle. His good gun is already strapped to his back. There's no cape or steampunk sunglasses this time, but that just gives the gun more time to shine. The bag has more guns in it, some mines, rope, and—

"MREs?"

Wade plucks one out. It purports to be "Beef Stroganoff" and "Mashed Potatoes." Fat fucking chance. If Wade remembers correctly, the flavours are closer to "Dog Vomit" and "Pure Sadness."

He shakes the bag at Nate. "Please tell me you plan on using these to torture people tonight. Please."

Nate looks at the "meal" in Wade's hand, then down at the others in the bag. 

"What's wrong with them?" he asks defensively. "I eat these all the time."

"I’m sorry, did you say _eat_? Present tense?" 

"Yes?"

Wade wings the MRE across the room like a Frisbee. It goes pretty far, over the couch, skidding toward the bathroom. Nate watches it go.

"What is wrong with you?" Wade asks. "These suck. I used to eat these in the forces and they’re demoralizing garbage. Eat real food. I thought after The Great Sugar Discovery of 2018 you'd jizz your pants for food."

Nate makes a dismissive sound, shrugs. "I eat food. These are convenient. I'm used to them. In the future, a lot of food comes in bags and my family doesn’t have a choice about it."

"You have a choice now, dumbass. I keep telling you: if you're here, live like you're here. You don't get martyr points for making sad-ass decisions. Do whatever the fuck you want. Fuck a hundred people. Take a bath in corn syrup. Get your GED. No one is watching you."

"Seems a lot like _you_ are," Nate shoots back. He’s still on one knee, but he’s facing Wade head-on. He looks expectant, eyebrows up.

"Because you keep getting in my eye-line. In fact, it happens about every ten days.” Wade points at the calendar accusingly, with its notes about _TP!!_ , and the days before those, _C?_ in gel pen. At that, Nate looks away, setting his jaw.

“Yeah, got your number there, didn’t I? You’re not hiding from me. Now, for the last time, get off the cross. I need the wood to build a giant dildo for Colossus." Wade puts the knife in his belt decisively and goes to change his shoes. He kicks the MRE into the hall closet on his way. 

When he comes back, Nate's duffle is zipped up tight and so is his face. Wade pulls his mask on, reaches for his own bag.

"Let's go," Nate says sourly. 

Taking Dopinder this far out of the city would really cut into his working hours, so they boost a car. Nate does it, through some complicated means that make Wade feel like he doesn’t quite have the full story, powers-wise. But that’s a story for another time, and they have shit to do right now.

*

This job definitely does not go well. The warehouse where the guy’s being held is at the end of a long road, and is well-guarded. They hide out in a cluster of trees to case the place.

Wade’s having a little trouble with the distraction. His Molotov cocktails are more like mocktails. The rags don’t want to light. He flicks the cheap lighter fruitlessly. “Goddamn 7-11. I should have brought the barbeque lighter.”

Nate shifts in a crouch beside him, doesn’t spare him a look. Wade flicks the lighter again, cursing. Nothing happens, nothing happens. He goes a third time, and there’s a little spark. He opens his mouth to say something when the light in one of the warehouse’s windows swells hugely, exploding outward.

“Shit!” Nate takes off for the warehouse, gun in hands. Wade has to throw down his mocktail and hurry to catch up.

There’s a second explosion, on the top floor. The guards around the outside are scrambling, yelling and pointing their guns at the black smoke billowing out of the windows. It makes them easier to kill. 

Wade flings the door open because he’s less flammable than Nate. He opens it, takes four steps inside, looking for the stairs up to the top floor. He takes another step inside, and the top floor collapses to meet him. It brings with it a pile of people who are well on their way to being cooked. One of those people is tied to a chair.

“Aw, titty sprinkles!” Wade yelps, jumping back into Nate, who keeps him from falling. The wall of heat makes Wade’s eyeballs and throat dry up. The smells of smoke and an unattended gas leak are thick already.

“Hello?” Someone calls from in the smoke, and fires an automatic rifle at them. Wade’s in front so he takes a couple in the gut. 

“Fuckin’ goddammit, balls,” Wade croaks, staggering. Nate shoves him out of the way, cranking up his gun so he can return shots. Wade makes himself stand up. One of the bullets definitely caught his liver and those ones always feel spicy for a minute.

More shots and yelling come from another corner of the building, and Wade turns to those, gets his own gun out. He pushes through the pain and takes off, firing. 

It doesn’t last long. Since the guy they came here for is literally toast, there’s no reason to spare anyone, proverbial friend or foe. Wade doesn’t get to use any of his knives, but at least no one’s alive by the time Wade circles back to find Nate. 

He’s kneeling by the burnt corpses, looking them over with just a little too much thousand-yard stare for Wade’s taste. His robot eye is dull.

“Hey,” Wade calls, from ten feet, then five, then one. He chances a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “Why don’t we not look at this anymore, hmm? No one here has a great track record with fire.”

Nate stares at the guy they came here for, who’s still smoking. He wasn’t much of a looker in the picture Weasel showed them, but he’s really not cute now. At least the neckbeard’s gone.

Wade gets the back of Nate’s neck, shakes him gently. “You in there?”

Nate comes back to himself with a jolt. “What did you say?”

“I said we should have brought Domino with us, made her do all the work. Let’s get out of here before it all falls down.”

The trudge back to the car is very quiet, minus the lingering sounds of the fire: the crackling, the shuffling, the collapse.

*

“Listen,” Wade says when they get to his apartment, because apparently all the blood he lost on this hellbag of a mission has been replaced by generosity. “I know _dinner_ is usually the super secret code word for _get the fuck up out my face_ , but why don’t you, just this one time, come in and eat something? We can let creepy old Dr. Oetker fill us full of his goodness. It’s better than your regularly-scheduled MREs.”

Nate pulls a face at the thought, but it settles into heavy tiredness pretty quick. “No.”

Wade, who already has his keys out and in the door, turns. “No? What the fuck, no?”

“I don’t…want to,” Nate says, and that’s maybe the worst lie Wade’s ever heard. Nate doesn’t even try to school his face into anything resembling disinterest, or disgust, or suddenly getting a phone call. It’s so bad Wade doesn’t feel like it’s rude to laugh in his face.

“Nice try, cutie pie. We just talked about you doing what you want, so too bad; I made the offer and you’re taking it. I want to go to The Good Place when I die, so I need the points.”

“I think that’s kidnapping,” Nate says, but he comes inside, so that makes Wade a good person. Suck it, Ted Danson.

Frozen pizza is a staple for Wade, but even he has to admit that this isn’t Dr. Oekter’s best offering. It’s both too dry and too wet, and the cheese is a little plasticy. It’s barely better than an MRE.

Nate spends more time frowning at his pizza than eating it. He doesn’t talk, but Wade doesn’t expect him to want to. The job was a total turd, Nate came face to face with what’s probably his nightmare fuel, and who even knows if they’ll get paid.

Wade takes the slice of pizza out of Nate’s hand and drops it topping-side down on the cutting board they’re using as a plate.

“Hang tight,” he says, patting Nate’s slumped shoulder.

The freezer is a graveyard of tasty treats, excluding the Dr. Oetker pizzas, which Wade dumps in the garbage. Wade has to dig for a while, knocking frost off of stuff to read labels, but he finally comes up with something good. He whistles while he rips the box open, dumps it on a paper plate, and puts it in the microwave.

After several minutes on high, the single-serving apple pie comes out of the microwave at what feels like 1000 degrees, which is absolutely the correct way to eat it. He sticks a plastic fork in it and ferries it to Nate.

“ _Et voilà_ -ow, fuck, hot hot hot.” He holds the paper plate by its very edges. “Be careful. Don’t burn your special little fingers.”

Nate balances the plate on his metal hand, which is a smart trick. He leans close to smell the pie, then away. The steam coming off it really is like lava.

“What is it?”

“It’s called pie.” Wade hikes a thumb at his own chest. “I 100% made it.”

Nate snorts. He picks up the fork and stirs the caramel oozing off the factory-cut apple slices. The whole pie folds into itself, too hot to sustain its structure. Nate keeps stirring until it’s all one gluey mess, and then he stops.

He looks at it, his mouth thin and unhappy, his stupid fuckboy Pidgeotto haircut falling around his ears. 

“This fucking sucks,” he says to his pie puddle, but he doesn’t mean the pie.

Wade looks around, feeling a little helpless. He was kind of counting on the pie to carry the emotional load here. “Well,” he hedges, “I might have some Splenda packets somewhere? It tastes like sugar, sort of, but people say it’s made of poison. You can sprinkle a little of that on there.”

Nate smiles up at him, but it’s short and terrible. “I don’t want this.” He puts the plate down on the couch beside his leg. The fork topples over, dejected.

“What do you want?” Wade asks, because he has to. That’s how these conversations go. He knows what he’s hoping for, knows the feeling creeping into the room, but clarity is key. He tries not to trust his horny spider sense too much.

Nate looks up at him, his eye brightening. He screws up his face. “I want…to…”

He’s going to say something like _forget_ or _feel alive_ , because he’s the worst and has already used the phrase _prism of humour_. God forbid he comes out with _talk about my feelings_. Wade puts a hand on Nate’s forehead to save the world from that.

“Hey,” he croons, “never mind. I think I gotcha.”

He straddles Nate’s lap, lifts up and really settles in, rolling a little to make it clear he does have Nate, right up against his taint. Nate blinks, his pupil dilating, his eye lighting up.

Wade bites the fingers of one of his gloves, using the grip to pull it off. He does another swivel of his hips. “You want _this_? Getting your fuck on will probably make you feel better.”

Nate is looking at the glove in Wade’s teeth. He tugs it out slowly, gets only a little growling to go with it. His other hand holds Wade’s hip, way too lightly.

“Yeah,” he says, relieved, pushing his pelvis up.

“Great, good, candy for dinner,” Wade tells him, licking his chin until he opens his mouth. Wade takes it straight to nasty, because that’s where he lives and the best, most distracting sex is nasty. He sucks on Nate’s tongue until Nate is humping his ass and digging all ten fingers into whatever he can reach, which is mostly Wade’s dick and his ass, thank you, water stain Jesus.

Wade licks Nate’s mouth a little more. “You wanna take this home, boyfriend?” 

Nate flexes powerfully, which had better be a yes, because the pie is burning the shit out of Wade’s knee.

*

The bedroom is a disaster, because Wade cannot be made to give a shit. He'll probably blow up this apartment just like the last one, so why bother? But right now all the explosives are in the closet so he kicks things out of the way with impunity as they strip. He doesn't bother with the light either. The pre-dawn Wade can see through the window provides enough light for the good stuff.

Good stuff like Nate reclining back on Wade's dirty sheets, his body broad, his cock and balls heavy against his thigh. The metal doesn't spread as far as Wade's idle fantasies had imagined, but the rounded robot shoulder is interesting and unsettling enough to make up for it.

"You have a nice body," Nate says when Wade straddles him again. He touches Wade’s belly where the bullets went in, puts his thumbs in the cuts on Wade’s hips. It doesn’t seem like he’s joking.

"It was heavily discounted," Wade says lightly, rubbing his hands over his pecs, palming his cock up against his belly, letting it fall. It slaps against Nate's stomach, rubs there as Wade starts back up his grind. It's very satisfying when Nate's cock gets harder against his ass.

"You wanna fuck me?" Wade asks just to ask. To watch the words sink in for Nate.

Nate grips the tops of his thighs, forcing Wade to sit down harder. His own hips come up, his cock sawing pleasantly against the inside of Wade's thigh.

"Uh-huh," he grunts. 

Wade finds the pump on the lube bottle on the bedside by muscle memory, gets a dripping palm of it. He skims his knuckles over Nate's chest, leaving a trail, before getting his hand around Nate's cock.

"Jesus," Nate hisses, rising like a bridge. Wade squeezes his cock, jacks him a few times. His hand is lubed to the wrist, so it's no problem to get Nate slick from tip to balls. 

"Shouldn't you," Nate mutters as Wade kneels up, but he's got Wade's hips, and isn’t stopping Wade from lowering. He moans when they make contact, when Wade's asshole opens for his cock.

“Shh, shh, Daddy’s got you.” Wade eases further down onto Nate’s thick, fantastic dick. It’s a forward thing to say, considering that even if Wade had a mansion of kids at his disposal, Nate would still be the daddy figure. But that’s a kink you should probably ease into, so Wade keeps it breezy. He knows how to take baby steps.

Nate closes his eyes, breathing roughly through an open mouth. His hips lift in a short jerk. Wade will take it.

"Good, good, fuck," Wade sighs, putting a hand on Nate's slippery chest. He uses that to lift himself, lets gravity bring him back down.

Wade rocks for a minute, enjoying himself. Below him, Nate's tense, clearly struggling to just take it. His hips keep lifting and his fingers start to dig in, but he always stops himself before it gets good.

Wade jams a knee into his flank. “You havin’ some trouble, cowboy?”

“No,” Nate says, wincing, eyes still closed tight.

Wade settles, balls deep. “Really now. You’re holding out on me.”

Nate blows out a hard breath, opens his eyes. If looks could kill, Wade would be living his dreams right now. 

“What do you want from me?” he grits out.

Wade puts his fingernails against Nate’s chest, tearing one on the cords of metal. He does a slow roll to watch Nate squirm.

“I want,” he says, “to get deep dicked, and hard. You can’t come in here looking like the world’s porniest action figure and just starfish on me. You’re obviously gagging for it.”

Nate looks at him as levelly as he can from his position, hands holding Wade’s knees.

“Fuck you,” he says, dry as hell for someone whose dick is as wet as it is. “All you do is give me mixed signals.”

Wade barks in laughter. He reaches behind himself, strokes his thumb over the base of Nate’s cock, the softness of his sack. Nate goes a little drunk-eyed at that.

“ _This_ is not a mixed signal,” Wade says very slowly. He leans in, close enough to lick Nate’s ear, which he does. “Listen to me nice and close: I want you to Fuck me, capital F. I’ve been DTF since the second time you tried to kill me and it looks like that’s true for you too. Shit, I’m betting you haven’t blown a load since you’ve been here. You deserve that and I want to see it.” He bites Nate’s ear and straightens back up so he can jerk his cock and grind while he talks.

“Look at me,” He says, nice and easy, “I’m human bubble gum. So why don’t you to chew me up and spit me the fuck out?” Wade twists his hips a little, puts a finger on his own tongue.

Nate groans. “You have a disgusting mouth.”

“Baby, you say the sweetest things,” Wade says, and clamps his hand over Nate’s mouth and nose. He’s not trying for violence, just a reaction. He gets one, Nate’s whole body rearing up against Wade, his eyes going wide. His metal hand bites into Wade’s side, grips hard.

“Yes,” Wade hisses happily when he gets pushed off, slammed back into the bed.

“You dirty fuck,” Nate spits, Wade’s fading fingermarks on his cheek. He sounds pissed, but he’s into it now, jerking Wade’s hips down, getting in deep on the first thrust and not letting up.

Wade moans agreeably. He tries to rock into it, be helpful, but he’s getting more than he asked for, which is exactly what he hoped for. He should have known. He remembers the blowjob. Like a man who sucks dick like that is really gonna be a terrible fuck. Nate just needed a little encouragement.

It’s a hard, thrilling ride. Wade gets a hand on his dick as soon as he can, jerking himself to the rough sounds of Nate getting his. Nate folds Wade almost in half, gets his knees under him so he can go for gold. From this angle, Nate looks great, very aggressive, very turned-on. It might be a new best look for him.

“You want it like that?” he says hot in Wade’s face, sending tingles through Wade.

Wade nods, afraid he’ll choke on his own tongue if he talks and unwilling to stop jerking off long enough to make any helpful hand gestures. He digs his heel into Nate’s thigh in case the message isn’t clear enough.

Nate bites his jaw as he nails Wade’s prostate, and that’s the money shot. Wade moans like he’s about to die, dick creaming his fist, rubbing his right knee raw on Nate’s metal ribs.

“Jesus, fuck,” Nate groans, but doesn’t stop giving it to Wade. His rhythm goes tight, jolting.

Is there anything better than watching someone come so hard it looks like it hurts them? Probably not. It’s the chef’s finger kiss of O-faces. Nate’s mouth is open and he’s panting, his tongue fat against his teeth. His eyes aren’t tracking on anything but his left eye is blazing. Wade looks at him until his eyes feel dry, until Nate’s done.

They breathe each other’s nasty breath and sex funk for a moment before Nate eases back, holding Wade’s thigh back so he can pull out.

“Damn,” he groans with feeling, going down on his shoulder beside Wade, rolling onto his back.

Wade lowers his legs, reveling in the good soreness. There’s nothing like that wet, well-used feeling to end-start your day. He takes the first full breath he’s had in minutes, uses it to say, “Knew you had it in you. And now it’s in me.”

Nate laughs for a second before rubbing a hand over his mouth, taking a deep breath. The sex smell is settling, and underneath there’s a lingering waft of fire mixed with gas and an unpleasant barbeque smell. Nate takes another breath, making a disgusted sound.

“This doesn’t fix things,” he says, some old guilt creeping into his voice. It’s probably not Junior he’s thinking about on fire.

Wade closes his eyes, hunting for the fading afterglow. It’s hard to find. He’s not thinking about a mobster’s shitty kid on fire either.

“No shit,” he says, more testy than he means. He takes a moment, forcibly softens his voice. “Sometimes shit sucks. But there’s good shit too. We’ll always have sex and candy. Not just the song, although it’s a classic.”

Nate laughs again, not that he’d even get that reference, but Wade appreciates the attempt at playing along. Just in case, he says, “I’m all for ill-advised bad-job sex, but you liked it, right? If you say no, I’ll cry. I’ll ugly cry, which means something coming from me.”

“I liked it,” Nate admits after a beat. “I’ve wanted to for a while.”

“Good. Me too.” Wade makes a _so there_ gesture, hoping that takes care of that. He’s looking forward to a shower and a long nap before he has to tell Weasel that the job literally blew up in his face. He digs his shoulders into the mattress, moving his limbs around to get comfortable.

“I should go,” Nate says to the ceiling, after another long beat. He sounds pretty hesitant for guy capable of such great sex and violence. Wade can hear him clearing his throat, awkward. If he tries to pick up using his wife as an example, then Wade’s not surprised that he doesn’t know what to do after a hook-up. 

Wade finds himself thinking about a week’s worth of MREs in a bag, a single Ferrero Rocher, human contact in ten day increments. A blowjob, that ugly magnet. Being stuck in the fucking past with no idea how to live hedonistically. _Mixed signals._

Having his eyes closed makes it easier to sense the moment when Nate’s body tenses. Before he can get up though, Wade puts a hand on his chest. There’s no lead token for Nate, so he just pats the incredible muscles. Rubs his fingertips over the scarred edge of the metal in a way he hopes is friendly and soothing.

“Yeah, maybe,” he says. “Or, you know what? Let me tell you something: I’m deathly afraid of the dark. It’s my one and only shameful secret. If people knew, they’d laugh at me. Like they laughed at Carrie.”

Nate snorts, taking the bait. “If that’s true, then _I’m_ laughing at you.”

Wade turns his face toward Nate, doesn’t open his eyes. “Don’t do that. You don’t know how _Carrie_ ends. What I’m saying is: I could use some company to help me deal with my terrible, irrational, life-ruining fear.” He presses down with his hand to make a point, until Nate’s chest softens under it. “Why don’t you stay for a while? I’ll make breakfast.” 

Nate subsides under his hand, relaxing into the sheets. “Okay, sure,” he says slowly. “If that’s what you want.”

Wade runs his knuckle over Nate’s greasy breastbone. “That’s exactly what I want.”


End file.
